July 21, 2009

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

Remember, our Faith is not just ours—when we speak of our Faith, we mean our personal, individual choice of faith, but we also speak of the Faith of the Church. Remember that from the Ritual of Baptism?...We have as our shield not only our personal faith, but the Faith of the Church, the whole Church. But it has to be personal, too; we have to be used to holding it, with a familiar grip—or we’ll fumble and drop it at the first sign of trouble. - Fr. Fox via Mrs. Darwin Catholic

Bad – that is, useless -- days come when I work with less damaged or undamaged kids (in the clinical sense), teenagers in particular. With them I score no victories and try to remember “Primum non nocere”—“First, not to harm” – the doctor’s credo. Diminished needs correspond inversely to their inflated demands. As a group they are sullen, self-centered, petulant and – most of them – marginally literate. - Patrick of "Anecdotal Evidence"

[Electronic] reading will forfeit the tactile dimension where memories insinuate themselves, reminding us of where and when D. H. Lawrence entered our lives that meaningful summer. “Darling, remember when we downloaded Sons and Lovers in Napa Valley?” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. The Barnes & Noble bookstore, with its coffee bar and authors’ readings, could go the way of Blockbuster as an iconic institution, depriving readers of the opportunity to mingle with their own kind and paw through magazines for free. - James Wolcott

Education helps to make a man more aware of the variety of responses open to him, gives him an ear for finer distinctions and for precision in the use of words, a realization of how much he owes to what other people have thought and done in the past, and fills his mind with ideas that can be enjoyed in solitude. - Shirley Robin Letwin

We lit candles. And they wanted to. Every church we went into, they wanted to light candles. It was Michael who taught them and formed them in the practice, in the midst of all of our travels. They always lit candles for someone with Daddy, and he always had them pray - for my mother, for the intentions of some living person. It was never sentimental or overwrought, and if you knew Michael, you would know this. It was matter-of-fact and purposeful and, as a consequence, I think, very expressive of the faith at the heart of it. This is just true: Jesus Christ loves and redeems us, and through him we live, and to him we bring our hearts and souls, pains and joys. We tell him about it, we ask him for help, we ask his friends for help and we do this with words, with sighs, with cries, with music, with art...and with candles. - Amy Welborn

Fox anchor just now: "We don't really know her opinion about abortion. She's Catholic, so we just can't know." Tell me about it. - Karen of "Some Have Hats"

What could I endure for money and privilege and ownership of a portion of lakefront? This place is packed to the gills with every comfort and beauty that nature designs and money can buy. I want to keep it all, forever, and I can't help counting down the days and minutes until all this grace will be taken from me. The terminal nature of our vacation taints every moment of this respite with sadness. Such is life for a greedy pessimist. - Betty Duffy

One of my Indian co-workers said when someone asked her how it was that she'd remained happily married for 20+ years to a man she only met ten minutes before her wedding. "You just tell yourself you don't have any other options," she said. "If you really believe that, it helps you avoid starting problems that will make you want out." At this point in modern America's divorce culture, it's very hard to tell yourself that there are not other options, but I think that rebuilding that mentality -- not just as in "I'd better put up with this, because there's no way out" but rather "I had better make sure that I'm easy to live with, because if I cause problems there is no way out of them" -- is probably the only real path back towards marital stability and sanity in the wider culture. - Darwin Catholic

About Me

Why this URL?

Why "poncer.blogspot.com"?

PONC is the business acronym for "Price Of Non-Conformance", which basically means putting a price-tag on a screw-up. This from a faddish business book from long ago. We were impressed someone could make money writing lines like "quality is free".

Site

News Links

Betty Duffy

Various Links

Quick Quotes

"Christianity brought reverence for what is below us." - Goethe____

"Your salvation is in the hands of God...There is no purely human knowledge of one's eternal destiny that can contain the infinitely greater certainty contained in your faith and hope through Christ our Lord." - EWTN Q&A____

"It is a truism in the interpretation of Scripture that its spiritual message is disclosed only to those who bring to their reading a consciousness of their need for God and his mercy. Only they ‘get’ it and appreciate the urgency of the message. The others are all bewildered.” - Msgr. Herron